A Cinderblock to The Jaw

             Was in for a fairly painful setback today. Though it wouldn’t be fair unless I admit that I did get off better than some people, and there are probably people wishing they had what I did. Well, if I was them, I'd probably be wishing the same

             But a setback is a setback, and this involves six months of my young adult life. No, not prison. I got the results for an exam session I was taking and it turns out I failed one of three. Wouldn’t be that much of problem… but it turns out I can’t do the next stage unless I pass all three papers on this stage. So six months for one subject and another six months for the next level when I could have easily have finished this qualification in may.


             Ho hum. Six months. Well yeah, I was disappointed when I first read that email. There I was, warm in bed, like any normal person at 5.45 am. Then one of my blokes gives me a call and tells me that the results are out. He’s all excited. Why shouldn’t he be? He had been expecting to flunk all three and there he was, proudly flunking just the one.

             I stumble out of bed, hit the light, flip open the laptop, wait for the darn thing to load, and all the while his voice is still in my ear, and I have no idea what he’s saying. Heck, I don’t know what I’m doing up at a quarter to six in the morning, my toes morphing into ice cubes and my fingers following close behind.


             Why ever didn’t I say “Yeah, great, bye,” and then hang up, turn around and have another 5 hours of blissful sleep before checking it much, much later in the day?

             Because I’m nosy, that's why.




             Switch on the wifi, sign into to my mail, and there, the fateful words:

             PASS

             PASS

             FAIL



             To say I was numb would be a fairly accurate description, given the temperature and the state of my former toes. Then, my facebook chat opened up, my phone started beeping, and I was flooded by texts and messages. And as I read and replied message after message, it dawned on me that maybe I was not alone in this miserable world of failed exams.

             All around me, the dismal beacons were being lit, resignation mingled with sadness, people who failed reaching out to others who had failed, all of us united in our hatred of the cruel examiners that fate had delivered our papers to.

Also the agony of having to do the same class for another six months just coz some dude had been too stingy to give us five more marks. What harm could it have done, really? It would have saved us…


             Ahem. Moving on.


             Then the tales came up, the whispered accounts of those who had failed everything they had sat for, doomed to repeat all classes again. First there was one, then another, and another…

             And as I sat there, with my frostbitten toes and twin icicles under my nose, I thought to myself that maybe two out of three wasn’t so bad.

             Sure, it was still six months, but I’m doomed to just one class rather than all three. And besides, setbacks are gonna be there, and it didn’t matter if you didn’t want them, they didn’t give a darn. They sit there and block your path, and all you can do is roll up your sleeves and climb over them. Or slip trying, but let’s not think about that.

             I’d like to say that I had a slight epiphany at that moment, but truth be told, I don’t know whether it was just a raging fever. But what I'm trying to tell myself to make me feel better is this:

             Everything happens for a reason.


             Maybe it was to show me that I wasn't as invincible as I had thought? Maybe the very next paper for the next level would be so tough that I would fail it undoubtedly ad be even more broken up than I am now? Or maybe it was because I was destined to meet someone in the new class? (Give me a break, I'm trying to be optimistic here)

             Or maybe the only reason I failed one exam was so I could have something to write about in this second post

             So be it.

             (The things some people need to get a little inspiration these days)